Poem: Love Reading

Actually, that's not really this one's title, 'cos it kind of doesn't have a title, I never settled on one - but this dang post has to be called something. Further, despite my intention to start uploading my older poems and work forward, after reviewing the past two years or so of my poetry, I decided to do a little run of my more recent ones while they're fresh (because they all kind of follow one narrative) then go back on quieter months when I run out of other sh*t to upload.

Regardless, this poem is dated 23rd December, 2019.

Love Reading:

Past:

The Star –

Remember when you had so much hope?

In a sky full of clouds,

You could look up,

Point at your own breath misting in front of you

Zoom in to every crystal of ice forming in the frozen air,

Smile and say,

See? Every collapsing lung is a hundred new constellations.

You didn’t come to me last time,

Or the time before.

Why?

What did you think I would tell you?

Caution? Rejection?

You have always loved above a safety net,

So certain of being dropped that you will never

Commit to the full swing.

Metaphors fail, because

If this were a real cliff, you would sprint to the edge,

Leap into the abyss,

Without hesitation,

Desperate to say that you did,

Willing to trust any rope to catch you.

But the rope is someone’s hand.

Someone who promises they love you.

Promises they would tear down the sky for you,

Rip open the night, write your name in stars –

And you have been left falling too many times

To trust anything other

Than your own grip

Burning your skin on rough fibres as you fall.

 

Present:

Ten of Wands –

You cannot see a way forward.

The journey has been so long.

You do not see what holds you back; you have been fighting

Through a thornbush, and it hooks

And tears, pulling you back, pulling you back,

And they say that the only way out is to lie still

Until someone’s loving hand reaches in to save you,

But who would come for you?

Who could you trust,

When it was the hand you loved most in the world that

Led you in, promised you stars,

Slipped away between the cracks in the earth?

Why do you come to me now?

Is it because you can feel the thorns,

Want to see their face?

Or is it because you know that the thorns

Are just your own clumsy fingers

Hooked around your collar

Pushing you back?

Do you want me to preach caution? Promise rejection?

You have promised never again so many times;

A warm hand closes over your own, a thumb tracing lightly

The chapped skin of your knuckles,

A promise held in breath mingling just inches apart –

Sprinting toward the cliff edge, pulling yourself back,

Scared maybe of offending with a misread signal,

Or maybe of lips meeting, of leaping, of falling,

Of hands being caught.

 

Future:

Two of Wands –

A way forward, pointing, a once-certainty once-broken.

There. That’s where I will be.

But this is where you are. You promised you would learn

How to stay. You are Here. The only place left.

Fingers slipping on the thick green moss,

Sinking in, boots on uneven stones rippling

With water, every drop of light a star

In a cascading galaxy,

Every breath green and certain.

Certain. Certain like a beating heart under your hand,

Skipping as you shift your thumb.

Certain like gravity. Like the dawn.

Certain of everything except a hand to catch you,

No hand except your own ever there.

Fear never held you back

From climbing a tree, from jumping

A creek. But it puts its fingers to your lips

And pushes them down, back to resting,

Shoulders tense now, guilt in the entertained thought:

To be loved; to be known.

You are a bonfire. You came to me to learn this.

Never forget what you are, my love.

You are a thing of ambition, of certainty,

Of burned-away regrets and the knowing of Here.

You say I do not advise,

Merely reveal what is already realised but

Not yet accepted.

You are waiting for me to tell you

You are too broken, too stuck,

Too wanting, too heated,

Too much.

All I can do is show you the stars you once made

With the outbreath of a hoarse,

“I love you,” sobbed to a back as it walked away;

All I can do is say,

If this were a cliff

Would you not already have jumped?